• The outcomes in the House Budget Committee were somewhat revelatory. Allen Boyd voted against reporting out the reconciliation bill: he moves from a lean No to a No. Marcy Katpur, Marion Berry, Bob Etheridge and Tim Bishop voted Yes. In fact, Etheridge and Bishop took leadership positions on some of the motions to instruct; Etheridge’s words were absolutely enough for me to take him off the board; he’s a Yes. Bishop and Kaptur become lean Yes votes. Berry is harder to figure; he just put forward his own alternative health care bill, which signaled to me that he was giving up on this process. And he’s expressed support for the Stupak bloc. I’ll move him from a firm No to lean No, but no further.

• Chris Carney (D-PA) told a local paper that he could not support a bill allowing public funding of abortions, but deemed himself undecided on the bill. I’m putting him into the Stupak-curious bloc.

• Jerry Costello (D-IL), another member of the Stupak-curious bloc, says he opposes the Senate bill in its current form, but that evades the question, since the Senate bill in its current form is not on offer. This is why Nancy Pelosi will resort to a procedural measure where the House can vote on the reconciliation amendments and “deem the Senate bill passed.” It allows House members to avoid this thing where they oppose the Senate bill “in its current form.” That said, Costello still could oppose the bill on final passage; I’ll keep him at undecided.

At the event, Obama began by thanking local dignitaries. When got to Kucinich, someone in the crowd yelled, “Vote yes!” The president stopped and said, “Did you hear that, Dennis?” And the person in the crowd yelled again, “Vote yes!”

I don’t think it really threw Rep. Kucinich; he’s staked out his reasons, and they’re pretty clear. I’m keeping him at No.

• White House officials listed Bart Gordon and John Tanner as possible No-Yes flippers, which I fully expected. Another likely candidate to flip, the retiring Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA), remains undecided. Nothing about Adam Smith (D-WA) in that article, who is not on my board, makes me think I should include him.

• Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL) held a previously unreported one-on-one session with President Obama last week. She reportedly continued to bring the discussion back to NASA funding for her central Florida-area district. I’ll keep her at lean Yes, and don’t be surprised if she comes out soon as a supporter.

Where does that leave us? Adler and Boyd are No votes; Berry goes from No to lean No; Etheridge is a Yes; Bishop and Kaptur go to lean Yes. So we’re now at 191 Yes, 206 No. With leaners – there are now 13 Democrats in the lean Yes category, and 2 Republicans in lean No – you’re at 204-208.

The raw numbers on the flip:

Definite YES:
191 Democrats, including Scott Murphy (D-NY) and Jason Altmire (D-PA), who voted No last time, in November.

Democrats need 25 of a combination of the 12 potential No-Yes flip votes and the 22 potential Yes-No flip votes. So they need 25 out of the remaining uncommitted 34. If you’re counting leaners, Democrats need 12 of the last 19 uncommitted.

Yes indeed, you are right on…we need to make this so bloody that Obama won’t be able to triangulate with the thorns in a rose garden. The corporatists and the pseudo progressives in the House of Representatives have gotta pay a big price so that when the dust settles after this November, Obama has no base anywhere. And if he thinks he can intimidate Kucinich he’s gunna be spendin a lotta time in retirement with Rahm after 2012.

It should be noted that the reason that Dennis Kucinich, and maybe others, vote “no” is because the bill does not go far enough. Kuchinich might vore “yes” if the bill had a public option or had some possibity of single payer on a State or national basis.

Assuming your leaners are correct, based on the PVI…looks like “No” wins the battle.

FWIW Costello is NOT undecided….on your best day he’s a lean no
“I don’t like the process at all – I think the White House and the leadership has bungled this from the start,” he said. “It’s so complicated that the American people are fearful of what’s in the bill – this is a very complex issue that affects every man, woman and child, and it’s so complex that it scares people.”

At the event, Obama began by thanking local dignitaries. When got to Kucinich, someone in the crowd yelled, “Vote yes!” The president stopped and said, “Did you hear that, Dennis?” And the person in the crowd yelled again, “Vote yes!”

If that were me, and not Dennis, I’d have called him out on the spot on the Public Option. Asked for a show of hands. Who’s for the bill? Who’s for the bill with the public option? Who’s for single payer?

Unfortunately it’s the President’s event, and his OFA/DNC folks probably invited the crowd. Any local politician that tried to put the President on the spot would be shouted down.

As it is, Obama seriously broke with normal decorum for one of these campaign events: you don’t invite a politician to a rally and call him out publicly. Obama was just plain rude, and naturally he was disrespectful to a liberal and not a Blue Dog Dem. What else is new?

Down, dirty and dealing with you hoss, here’s the Merlot, now gimme another verbal ammo clip in case I run out from spraying the field . . . it seems we have WAY more targets than I was counting on!!!!!!

“PASS THE MERLOT AND MAKE SURE YOUR FOXHOLE MATES ARE ON YOUR SIDE!!!”

I love Dennis at this point. But one Prog after another has been caving beneath this corporate juggernaut. I would be sickened, but not totally surprised if Dennis comes out as a yes vote after some minor and inconsequential concession from Obama. All our heroes seem to have feet of clay.

Also, thanks a lot David D for all the time and effort you have been putting in to monitoring this push. Some time i’d be interested to hear how you mine all this info. Is it Washington connections? A million websites? Inquisitive phonecalls? All of the above?

Every unnecessary death due to lack of affordable health-care should bring all of us to anguish and anger, and provoke an immediate response to push for passage of the strongest possible health-care bill.

It’s too bad that it’s only at this late date that we have such a coordinated and powerful push to get such a weak health-care bill passed. It’s amazing to watch the frantic, mad scramble on the part of Obama, Reed, Pelosi and the rest of the Democratic leadership.

If only this “leadership” had made its presence felt months ago – particularly on the President’s part.

If Obama, Pelosi, and Reed had wanted to apply maximum pressure last Summer and Fall, I don’t think there’s much doubt that we could’ve had a much stronger bill, with a strong public option and far fewer giveaways to the health-care and pharmaceutical industries.

But the tactics of deal-making, delay and obfuscation, coupled with unnecessary deference to an intransigent and obstructionist Republican party, ended up serving the interests of big Pharma and big health insurance, and their corporate Democratic allies; deal-making, delay and obfuscation to the point where for many Democrats any health-care bill now is better than none.

For those of you pushing for this neutered health-care bill, thinking that it can be amended and strengthened later, perhaps you might be right.

But it may turn out to be much more difficult than you could’ve ever imagined. Because if you think that the health-care and pharmaceutical industries are powerful now, wait until these industries become even more profitable.

The windfall that big health insurance and big Pharma is going to reap from this bill is just going to make these industries even more powerful – politically as well as economically.

Sen. Durban’s observation during the bailout of Wall Street — “And the banks – hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a bank crisis that many of the banks created – are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own this place” – is an observation that applies equally well to big Pharma and big health insurance.

And now to top it off, these giant financial and corporate entities have co-opted the Supreme Court into allowing these corporate “persons” the unlimited ability to spend as much money as they want in their support for the increasingly bought-off candidates, parties and policies of their choice.

Funny thing about Faustian bargains, whatever might be achieved short-term is insignificant in terms of what is lost long-term.

The Senate bill allows states to set up their own single-payer system, but not until 2017 and the states could be sued by insurance companies, but I still think that is a great provision. Sanders fought to get that in there.

If that were me, and not Dennis, I’d have called him out on the spot on the Public Option. Asked for a show of hands. Who’s for the bill? Who’s for the bill with the public option? Who’s for single payer?

What a great idea!! MSM probably wouldn’t have shown it on the teevee, though.

Obama never says his plans will keep Insurance Companies from raising your rates. (the blind and dumb americans are suppose to assume that Obama HCR scam will lower their Insurance Rates, Obama HCR will not lower Insurance Rates)

Again this is INSANE, Obama acts like people are not going to ask him and other Dems “WHY are my Health Care Cost still going up?” Obama what are they going to say? “We lied to the american people, so that insurance companies could make more money.”

The funny thing about the Rally, was someone yelling Dennis K. to vote yes, can you say PLANT? why no one yelled out we want the PUBLIC OPTION?

uuuuuMMMMM? No one in OHIO wants the Public Option?

Obama and Robert Gibss are trying to pull a BUSH, the question one needs to ask, is how do you get into these Obama health rallys?

millions have broken their asses for these politically pathetic / sell out motherfuckers to lose / sell us out –

tally up EVERY moment they might suck out, every dime they want …

and let’s primary as many as effectively as we can – and if there is ONLY 1 fighter, then there is only 1.

fuck ‘em – let all those swayed-by-the-latest-idiotic-rove-atewater-ailes “moderate” fucking morons voters do what they’re gonna do, cuz, with pathetics and with sell outs “leaders”, we ain’t gonna stop the “leaders” or the morans.

The problem is that you are using passing a bill as an end itself rather than if a bill is good or bad. I think there’s a bunch of corporatists in both the WH and Congress that sell out the public, so the way you get GOOD legislation is by voting them out of office and blocking the BAD legislation they want to impose on us.